History of the American Occupation, or Policing

Paul Gordon- A brief cliff-notes look at policing will show you that the police force that exists today in America is not here to protect and serve you, save for the occasional PR move. Rather, the police force of today is essentially an occupying army intent to loot you and intimidate you to protect the well-to-do, the approved families, from the likes of you.

Policing as we understand it today began in England, thanks to the work of Sir Robert Peele, from whom the name Bobby derives its name.

Peele began experimenting with this paramilitary unit when he became Home Secretary in 1822. The primary task of this new force was to go into slum neighborhoods and assure that the rowdiness of the poor didn’t spill over into more affluent neighborhoods.

In 1829, these experiments bore fruit in the form of the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829. It created a force that had a territory 7 miles in radius that had as its center the city of London. It was later extended to 15 miles.

The politicians went to great lengths to assure the police did not look like military. They dressed them in blue uniforms and gave them clubs instead of guns. The primary job of the police was to protect the interests of the well-to-do from the have-nots in the slums.

Policing in America begins its history as Night Watches and Slave Patrols. The Night Watches were focused on making sure undesirables didn’t make trouble for desirables. The Slave Patrols kept watch over Slaves that might escape or tracked down slaves that did escape. The first Slave Patrols in America began in 1704 in the Carolina Colony/

Without Slave Patrols and the emergence of this special “Law Enforcement” class, Slaves would not have been kept at bay. The very institution of policing in America, especially in the South, but also in the North, was built on protecting wealthy slave owners from their unruly slaves and the people who might try and help free those slaves.

After the creation of London’s Metropolitan Police Departments, the well-to-do in American cities took note of this as well, especially in New York City. At first, the rival gangs of New York, working unofficially for political bosses, simply intimidated people to vote for this person or that person and generally kept the well-to-do areas of New York secured from undesired incursions.

But, upon seeing Peele’s successful model in London, and how the population seemed to accept this new form of tyranny, the first American Police Department was born, taking the gangs out of the shadows and making them official representatives of the government. In 1945, the New York Police Department was formed. The pattern was soon followed across the nation in cities far and wide, then trickling down to towns and villages.

The original purpose of policing was, and I would argue still is, to keep the slaves in line, to punish those who would attempt to free the slaves, and to protect the interests of the well-to-do from the unruly mobs of the undesirables.

Before Robert Peele, you had constables, you had Night Watchmen. The constables were there to enforce laws after they had been broken. The Night Watchmen were there to warn of threats to the community, such as fires. After Sir Robert Peele, you had a paramilitary force emerge whose job was to proactively keep the undesirables in line, to protect the well-to-do from having their property, their security threatened by those they were exploiting (with the blessing and protection of the state).

Now, in America, and around the world, the police force is becoming ever more overtly militaristic, resembling an occupying force more than a watch patrol. They have been transformed to become not only the first line of defense for the well-to-do against the undesirables, but they have become the collection agents of coercive enterprises, municipalities, townships, county governments, state governments, the federal government, looking for opportunities to seize your wealth and feed it to the coercive enterprises.

Now, in America, the police, the civil military arm of the coercive enterprise, are no longer merely protecting and serving the well-to-do, their revenue generators looking to bring in cash and property to fund the very machine that is being used, like an occupation force, to track us, fine us, imprison us and, if need be, or if the mood strikes, shoot us dead.

Woe to you if you happen to live in a poor community without connections to people of means, for if you live in that community, you are a primary target of this occupation force. They want your money, your property and to teach you a lesson to not dare cross from the wrong side to the right side of the tracks.